


The Arrow That Flies

by toomuchplor



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Babies, Domestic, Family, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-16
Updated: 2007-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:13:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toomuchplor/pseuds/toomuchplor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John, Rodney, banter, a baby, and some cuddling. Yeah, it's one of *those* fics. *g*</p><p><i>“You could have at least *warned me*,” Rodney answered pointedly, gesturing at Jeannie’s belly, “that you were all -- fecund.”</i></p><p><i>“I told you *six months ago*!” Jeannie protested. “I sent you a letter! Don’t you read my letters?”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Arrow That Flies

**Author's Note:**

> scribblinlenore said "Can I have something with the guys and puppies or kittens or babies or...something sweet and comforting?". emrinalexander and califmole specified puppies/kitties but I'd already gotten rolling on the following. To be fair, I threw in a puppy reference. Heh.

Rodney’s first words, upon seeing Jeannie glowingly pregnant, eight and three-quarters months along, hair riotously curling and the world’s hugest happiest smile plastered across her face, were: “Ugh, I’m trying not to imagine what you and that hippy vegan weirdo did in order to get yourself into this mess.”

“Rodney!” John said, disgusted.

“What? She’s my little sister! He -- impregnated her! I’m filled with brotherly indignation!” Rodney returned, while Jeannie beat him about the head with the brown paper donut bag from Tim Hortons, promising never to pick him up at the airport again if he was going to be a complete asshole.

“He’s my husband, Meredith! This is our *second child*!” she said, scowling and unrepentant when Rodney started complaining about pastry-induced concussions. “It’s not like he’s some random sexual predator.”

“You could have at least *warned me*,” Rodney answered pointedly, gesturing at Jeannie’s belly, “that you were all -- fecund.”

“I told you *six months ago*!” Jeannie protested. “I sent you a letter! Don’t you read my letters?”

“So, is this a bad time?” John asked, once the flurry of bickering had settled. “Because Rodney and I can get a hotel, we don’t want to intrude.”

But Jeannie reassured John (shooting Rodney dirty looks the whole while) that she and Caleb were glad to see Meredith and his -- here she had paused -- Meredith and *John*, anytime they got the chance. “Besides,” she said, shrugging, “Maddy was about three weeks postmature so I figure I’ve got a good month to go on this one still.”

Which, inevitably, had led to the moment less than eight hours later when Caleb tiptoed into John and Rodney’s guest room, shook them awake, and said apologetically that Jeannie’s water had broken, and could they watch Maddy while Caleb and Jeannie went to the hospital?

Of course they could, John told Caleb groggily, trying not to care that Caleb was seeing Rodney in John’s old sweatpants, and seeing John lying in bed with Rodney. “Call us,” mumbled Rodney into the pillowcase, eyes still shut, “when the -- the spawn. When Jeannie spawns.”

“When the baby’s born,” John clarified, making an apologetic face.

“Cool, thanks,” said Caleb, and backed out of the room.

“I’m so glad,” said Rodney over breakfast later, with a rare fondness in his voice, “that you don’t have a vagina and that nothing with a face is going to come out of your body, ever.”

“She’s not that bad,” said John, scooping the half-bowl of soggy Cheerios off of Maddy’s placemat and into the hollow of his other hand. “She’s just -- you know. Five years old.”

“No, I was thinking of the new one,” said Rodney, turning the page of the newspaper, blissfully unaware that John somehow ended up doing all the childcare even though he wasn’t even related. “I mean, think about it.” He lifted his head, frowning with contemplation. “It’s like Caleb’s sperm started this grotesque chain reaction inside Jeannie. I would never have sex if it meant I could end up with my legs in stirrups, pushing a watermelon out my ass.”

John blinked, struck by Rodney’s imagery. “Yeah, I’m glad I’m a guy,” he conceded.

“It’s really pretty disgusting, when you let yourself think about it,” said Rodney, and bowed his head back to his paper.

Jeannie called around lunchtime. “Don’t feed Maddy any meat, Meredith!” she said, after John said hello. “I’ll be able to smell it on her breath!”

“Shouldn’t you be invoking Satan’s name right about now, with the grunting and pushing?” asked Rodney, picking up the extension.

“Oh, that’s over,” Jeannie said, blasé. “Dalton Gregory Miller, eight pounds nine ounces, about an hour ago.”

“Do you hate your children?” asked Rodney, wrinkling his nose at John. “You choose the most appalling names.”

“Congratulations,” said John hastily, wanting to say something normal before his head exploded from all the McKay weirdness.

“Anyway, I just called to tell you,” said Jeannie, “and the thing about the meat. The hospital’s letting us go home later today, so you won’t have to look after Madison too much longer.”

“Today?” asked John, appalled, still stuck on Rodney’s description of a watermelon and an ass.

“Canadian health care,” said Rodney dismissively. “Okay, we’ll order vegetarian Chinese for dinner,” he told Jeannie.

“Get the mushroom egg foo yung, I’m starving,” she said. “Oh, and Mer? Wait until you see his eyes, they’re exactly the same as yours.”

True to their word, and totally against the laws of decency as far as John’s concerned, Jeannie and Caleb were home in time for a late dinner, Jeannie cradling Dalton Gregory in the crook of one arm and looking only a little the worse for wear. She and Caleb juggled the baby and Madison back and forth, dealing with oddly mundane things like setting the table and finding the bag with the newborn diapers while John was still stuck on the part where yesterday Jeannie had been just *Jeannie* and suddenly today she was Jeannie plus a baby, a baby that John hadn’t gotten a proper look at because he couldn’t seem to find a way to ask.

So he made up a plate for Jeannie, another for Caleb, and when they finally got around to sitting down at the table, Jeannie tucked the blanket around Dalton Gregory and offered him up to John, like he held babies every day, like this wasn’t new and amazing and weird. John took Dalton, trying to seem cool and calm as Jeannie, but every muscle in his body was tense, his mind running a loop of ‘careful careful careful’ while Madison hopped in a circle around the kitchen and told Jeannie about how John burned the soup at lunchtime.

Dalton was warm and weighty and compact, sleeping and blissfully unaware that he had been handed into the arms of total incompetence, so John slowly made his way to a handy armchair and settled down with exaggerated caution, almost afraid to breathe. On the sofa next to him, Rodney was zoned out with his laptop open on his lap, typically unimpressed by the tiny baby with his eyebrows and eyelashes.

“Cool,” said John, and smiled, because, yeah -- those were definitely Rodney’s eyes. “He’s pretty awesome, Rodney.”

“Hmm?” said Rodney, looking over and noticing that John had custody of the newest Miller. “Oh. Does Jeannie know about that time you kicked a puppy?”

“Accidentally,” John corrected in a half-whisper, glaring.

“Oh, because that’s much more reassuring than having done it on purpose,” replied Rodney, rolling his eyes.

“It was a really really small puppy,” John added defensively.

“Again, not actually helping your case,” Rodney pointed out.

So John subsided into silence, gradually relaxing as he realized that Dalton wasn’t about to do anything more alarming than breathe and sleep. He tried a couple of times to look over at Rodney’s laptop, like he was so at ease with holding the baby that he needed some other kind of entertainment, but he kept getting distracted by things like the shiny slivers of Dalton’s fingernails, the little indentation above his upper lip, the secretive hollow of his ear.

“Are you done?” Jeannie asked softly, some minutes later, and John looked up and saw that she was standing beside, maybe had been there for a while.

“Can you get done?” John returned, genuinely curious.

“No, not really,” Jeannie admitted. “You want to hold him a while longer?”

“He’s yours,” John said, not moving. “I mean. He’s new. You should get to hold him.” It was awkward, pretty much exactly like being ten years old and playing with a friend’s new toy, thrilled and guilty and selfish all at the same time.

“Nah,” said Jeannie, pursing her lips and tilting her head. “I get to keep him for the rest of his life. You can have him for an hour if you want.”

John played it casual, shrugging as though he’d go along with the crazy new mother, but he had the feeling that Jeannie wasn’t buying it. He sat through Maddy’s noisy bedtime, not so different from the one they’d lived through only twenty-four hours ago, and when Caleb came back down the stairs, John had just about decided that Rodney was kind of wrong about the whole thing where sex leading to babies was a bad thing.

“She’s asleep,” Caleb told John, and held out his hands for Dalton. “I think the endorphins are finally wearing off.”

“I can’t believe she’s --” John said, reluctantly shifting so he could oh-so-carefully pass Dalton into Caleb’s confident arms. “--walking. You know. Normally.”

“If everything goes the way it should,” said Caleb, tucking Dalton up on one shoulder and holding him there in the crook of his elbow, jouncing gently, “childbirth isn’t actually that traumatic for the mother. Though Jeannie’s kind of a rock star that way, everyone in the obstetrics department was in awe.”

“Hell, I’m in awe,” admitted John, wide-eyed. “I kind of had these visions of women being all pale and weak and exhausted for days.”

Caleb laughed and shook his head. “Okay, I’m putting my boy to bed,” he said, tilting his chin towards the stairwell. “You guys going soon?”

John looked over and realized that Rodney had dozed off sometime in the last hour. “I guess we are,” he said, smiling in spite of himself.

They had a week of leave, and as it turned out, John and Rodney’s unintentional timing was probably a good thing; Caleb’s position as a sessional instructor with the local university didn’t come with a paternity leave benefit, so he was back to work the very next day. John didn’t volunteer on diaper duty, but he was glad to watch Madison while Jeannie showered or napped, and while Rodney wasn’t ever going to win any childcare awards, he was handy with other tasks like cooking and laundry.

“You still haven’t held him,” John observed, drying the dishes and putting them away while Rodney scrubbed the cutlery.

“Why should I hold him?” asked Rodney. “He’s barely human at this point, let alone sentient. It’s not like he’ll be able to recriminate me years from now with accusations of how I didn’t cuddle him when he was four days old.”

“It’s not for him,” said John, patiently. “It’s for you.”

“What if he -- look, I’m not comfortable with excretions, you might have noticed. I’m pretty sure Jeannie wouldn’t take kindly to me throwing her newborn across the room in disgust if he decided to poop on my arm or something.”

“You wouldn’t throw him,” John told Rodney, half reassurance, half warning.

“I just -- don’t feel the need, okay? Uncle John?” Rodney snapped. “Where’s the stupid scrubber thing?”

John found the pot scrubber and handed it over, trying not to smile at being called somebody’s uncle. He liked to think he was starting to get the knack of holding the baby without feeling breathless, like it was almost ordinary.

On the last night, they went out to eat -- a vegan restaurant that had a dizzyingly varied buffet. Rodney tried everything without citrus, ranted about the lack of meat, and then proceeded to go back for fourth servings of everything. Back at the house, Rodney coaxed John into having sex, promising on pain of death not to make any noises that might disturb the baby or Caleb and Jeannie.

“Since when do you care, Colonel Does It In a Tent In the Middle of a Field?” asked Rodney, lying shirtless between John’s spread thighs, his fingers slipping in soothing circles over the bump of John’s hipbone.

“Shh,” John said, simply, and put one hand on Rodney’s head, pulling him over John’s cock, trying to be quietly appreciative when Rodney opened his mouth and went down.

“I love non-procreative sex,” said Rodney blissfully and sleepily, some time later.

“You should hold him at least once before we go,” John said, stroking Rodney’s sweat-slick back, easing him down. But Rodney was already asleep.

John woke in the darkness and blinked at the digital clock, wondering what made him open his eyes at three twenty. With a groan, he rolled over, intending to curl into Rodney’s warmth and go right back to sleep -- but Rodney was gone. John opened his eyes again and became aware of the line of light under the door.

Rodney was sitting with his back to the wall in the hallway, bare feet pressed into the carpet pile, hair sticking up on one side from falling asleep with sweaty post-coital hair. He was holding a sheaf of photocopied papers in one hand and had Dalton tucked in the crook of his other arm.

“Thought you didn’t need to hold him?” asked John, rubbing the heel of one hand against his right eye, squinting in the dim light of the hallway.

“I heard him wake up,” offered Rodney, not looking up from his papers. “Jeannie said he was fed and changed and just wanted someone to hold him. So I said I could do that, had to get some work done anyway.” He smirked. “You should have seen her: she was staggering around like Zelenka after two Athosian beers.”

“Ha,” said John, though it sounded less triumphant as he said it halfway through a yawn. He made his way to Rodney’s side, staggering a little himself, and dropped down to the floor, nestling groggily into Rodney’s heat. “And?”

“And what?” said Rodney, huffing at something he was reading.

“And -- do you still think you might throw him across the room?” John tried, his mouth only half-awake.

“Well, it’s more of a hallway than a room,” said Rodney, frowning at the paper. “He wouldn’t have as far to go.” John made a sleepy sound of disbelief, and Rodney abruptly went sweet and plastic under the weight of John’s lolling head. “He’s okay, like this,” Rodney admitted, and John cracked his eyes open to see that Dalton was very much awake, blinking up at Rodney and watching him with familiar blue-eyed curiosity. “I can sort of look at him without imagining Caleb’s little liberal arts sperm diluting the McKay brilliance.”

“Would you ever want one?” John asked, rousing himself a little to ask this question.

“No,” said Rodney, confident. “But it’s nice that Jeannie has them.” He shot John a narrow look. “You *are* clear on the part where you don’t have a vagina and nothing with a face is ever coming out of your body?”

“What makes you think I’d want your baby, McKay?” said John, smiling into the soft cotton of Rodney’s t-shirt, reaching out with a single finger to stroke Dalton’s round cheek.

Rodney turned his head just a little, just enough to drop a glancing kiss onto John’s forehead, then went back to reading his papers. John fell asleep with the reassuring thrum of Rodney’s heart under his ear.


End file.
